How to Avoid Five Common Employment Law Mistakes in England

Being an employer can be difficult. Employment law is a vast area of law that you must stay up to date with to ensure your compliance. Complying with the law means understanding it and abiding by the obligations you owe your employees. This article will explain five common employment law mistakes in England. 

Five Common Employment Law Mistakes

Unlawfully Discriminating

Discriminating against your staff among one of the nine legally protected characteristics is illegal. It is also illegal to fail to take reasonable steps to prevent unlawful discrimination by others. Protected characteristics include race, sexuality, gender, and age. If an employee alleges unlawful discrimination and takes you to an employment tribunal and you fail to defend yourself, you may face civil and criminal liability. 

Despite the stakes, unfortunately, unlawful discrimination is all too common in the workplace. In some cases, the discrimination is unintentional. For instance, not adequately safeguarding the rights of a pregnant employee amounts to sex discrimination. You can avoid allegations of unlawful discrimination by implementing rigorous policies and ensuring your staff comply with them. For example, when your employee is on maternity leave, she has a right to return to her previous job regardless of who may have covered it in her absence. 

Inadequate Grievance Policies 

When an employee takes issue with your business, the law expects you to have a system in place to deal with such a complaint. An adequate grievance policy ensures that you deal with complaints promptly to avoid escalation. However, many employers neglect to implement grievance policies, resulting in disputes that may result in an employment tribunal summons. 

To avoid making this mistake with your employees, ensure that you have a clear disciplinary and grievance policy and procedure in place. Communicating regularly with your staff and providing them with opportunities to raise workplace issues enables you to meet grievances promptly as and when they arise. 

Failing to Follow Prescribed Disciplinary Procedures 

When carrying out your disciplinary procedures on a staff member, you must follow a full and fair procedure. You must follow the procedure in place when conducting disciplinary measures. 

Nonetheless, employers make the common mistake of not carrying out the correct procedures. To avoid making mistakes in disciplinary proceedings, ensure that your disciplinary rules and procedures are in writing, easily accessible to your staff, and ensure you follow them to the letter. They may be time-consuming and complicated at times, but abiding by them could save you from an unfair dismissal claim with an employment tribunal.

Failing to Give Legal Rest Breaks

Employers commonly fail to give their employees the rest breaks they are legally entitled to. Legally, employees must take a 20-minute break for every six hours worked. You must also ensure employees take 11-hour breaks between every shift and a weekly break of 24 hours. 

You can avoid making the mistake of not giving your employees the rest breaks they are legally entitled to by making sure that you are fully clear on the law in this area and by ensuring you have a system in place that ensures that you carefully plan shifts. Also, when you are in the workplace, you can check that staff are getting a rest break and ensure that your managers know this right.

Falling Behind With Changes in Employment Law

Employment law is a vast area of law that frequently changes. Therefore, as an employer, you need to keep up to date with it to ensure that you are not breaching any laws. However, employers commonly fall behind with changes in employment law which can cause a variety of employment law mistakes, potentially resulting in tribunal claims.

You can avoid this common mistake by instructing a competent legal team. Likewise, you can also ensure that your employment contracts are reviewed and updated accordingly. 

Key Takeaways: Five Common Employment Law Mistakes

As an employer, you must be aware of your obligations under the law and the rights your workers are entitled to. It is easy to make mistakes in employment law, and many employers commonly make them, but the repercussions can be harsh, such as facing an employment tribunal. Employers make many mistakes, such as not following disciplinary procedures and not giving staff their lawful rest breaks.

If you need help understanding how to avoid common mistakes in employment law in England, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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